


Moonstruck

by transpapyrus



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Bickering, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Old Married Rimmer and Lister, Post-TPL, Romance, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transpapyrus/pseuds/transpapyrus
Summary: moon·struck /ˈmo͞onˌstrək/ (adjective) unable to think or act normally, especially because of being in loveJust some little Rimster ficlets that my brain conjures up when I should be doing other things (like sleeping). Mostly takes place post-TPL, but timeline might vary.
Relationships: Dave Lister/Arnold Rimmer
Comments: 23
Kudos: 85





	1. Sleeping Together

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at Red Dwarf fic! I've been hoarding some of these for a few weeks now, and finally worked up the nerve to post them. They're more like fragments of ideas, unpolished, and very short, but since I can't be bothered to write an actual story, this is all I have to offer.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kryten asks too many questions.

“So sirs, since you two are sleeping together now—“

As Kryten speaks, Lister dissolves into giggles while Rimmer just stands there, looking absolutely mortified. “We’re not — I mean, I’m — that’s not — we’re only—” he splutters, not very dignified at all, despite the way he straightens his jacket and smooths his pants and tries to give the illusion of being put together. 

Kryten, to his credit, doesn’t pry, and seems to think better of finishing whatever he was going to say. He offers a somewhat confused nod and walks off. Poor guy. Lister will have to explain it all to him, one day. Once he’s gone, he turns back to Rimmer who’s still red-faced and looking exceptionally hard at a spot on the wall. 

“Well we are sleeping together,” Lister says diplomatically, after a moment. “He wasn’t wrong.”

Rimmer looks up and over at him, startled out of whatever was going on in that curly haired head of his. “Yes, well,” he says, which is Rimmer-speak for  _ I don’t have a good retort but I’m right because I say so. _ “The words ‘sleeping together’ have certain... implications.”

Lister snorts. “Yeah, well I don’t think Kryten knows that. Sometimes sleeping together just means sleeping together. And that’s all we’re doing, so why the concern?”

“People talk.”

“What people? That’s no one else here, Rimmer. Just Kryten, and the Cat, and us, the two blokes who are  _ just _ sleeping together.” Lister puts his hands in his pockets, sighing. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“ _ I’m _ being ridiculous?” Rimmer looks absolutely affronted. “Well when everyone starts staring and talking about us and saying things, then you won’t be laughing, or looking so smug. Then you’ll be sorry.”

“What  _ things _ ? Rimmer, there’s nothing for them to talk about. We’re just sharing a bed. I’m not sorry about it.” A pause, his expression shifts into something more curious. “Anyway, what’s so bad about them thinking we’re doing something more?” 

Rimmer gapes at him, and Lister thinks he must’ve sprouted two heads from the shocked expression on the other’s face. “What’s so bad?” he echoes. “The thought that we, that I, that the two of us, are... is....”

Lister sours immediately. “Absurd? Got it. I understand now.” He turns away, propping his foot up on the table and beginning to unlace his boots. Rimmer doesn’t even comment. 

“No, I don’t, I don’t mean that, I simply think that... what we do... privately...” He flounders for a real explanation, and Lister lets him. He’s dug himself into this hole, and he can claw his way out of it. “I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, or thinking that we’re, you know...”

He looks so pathetic that Lister decides to rescue him, if only to spare himself the second hand embarrassment. “Are you ashamed?” he asks, seriously. 

Rimmer freezes, eyes wide. “Of course not!” he says, a perfect lie, voice too high pitched, eyebrows jumping up into his hairline. “What’s there to be ashamed of?”

Lister shakes his head, moving away from the table, and walks back over to Rimmer until they’re standing toe to toe. “That’s what I’m asking you.”

“We’re just two people—”

“—Sleeping together?”

Rimmer falls silent. Lister smiles, rolling his eyes. “Come on, smeghead.” He reaches out, taking one of Rimmer’s hands and lacing their fingers together. “It’s late. Come to bed, stupid.”


	2. Sunday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sundays are for being lazy, unless you're Arnold J Rimmer.

It’s the shifting of the mattress that wakes Lister up. He notices three things, in this order:

One: Somehow, being awake makes you more cold than being asleep does.

Two: Rimmer’s not in bed next to him.

Three: Rimmer is standing up and about to be out of reach.

“Nnnnnnmmmhhhh,” Lister says intelligently, flapping his arm around absently until it reaches its target — fingers wrapping around a narrow wrist, holding it tightly so the person it’s attached to can’t escape.

“Listy, I’ve got to get going!” replies Rimmer, his free hand on his hip. He looks down at Lister, annoyance evident on his face, but with the smallest hint of fondness as well. Seems even his bossiness can’t fully suppress his desire to be wanted. Missed, even. “Full day today! You should get up too, you know. It does no good to lay around in bed. It’s a waste of 24 hours!”

Lister rolls his eyes and puts the pillow over his head. “Rimmer, it’s 6:00 on Sunday morning! I’m not doing any work. And neither should you.”

“You could at least come on a run with me. You could do with some exercise. At this rate you’re going to have another heart attack.” 

That actually gets Lister to sit up, giving Rimmer a look of pure indignation. “It wasn’t a heart attack to begin with,” he protests, still blinking sleep out of his eyes. “Kryten said it was indigestion.”

Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t seem to pacify Rimmer, who only shakes his wrist free and crosses his arms. “That isn’t any better!” he splutters, nostrils flaring, and it takes all of Lister’s control to not burst into giggles. He flops back down on his side and presses the pillow to his face to muffle the laughter that does escape, then pulls it down slightly to peer at Rimmer from over the top. His disgruntled expression is enough to nearly have him in stitches all over again. 

“Tell ya what,” Lister says, hugging the pillow to his chest now, since there’s no chance of Rimmer getting back into bed with him. “You go. I’ll stay here. Kryten can make breakfast for us, and by the time you get back, I’ll be ready to get up.” Rimmer’s brow furrows more, but Lister gives him a pleading look, eyes wide and lips pursed in a pout, and after a few moments of looking like he’s going to burst from the steam practically coming out his ears, Rimmer throws his hands up in the air in defeat.

“Oh, alright!” he says, shaking his head. “You really are hopeless, Lister.”

He turns to stomp off, and Lister moves quickly to capture his hand one again. This time, he gives Rimmer a good strong tug, yanking him down to his level. He pulls him into a kiss, hard at first and then softening, and winds his other hand around him, his fingers curling into the soft hairs at the back of Rimmer’s neck. The other’s surprised protests die on his lips as he mumbles something unintelligible against Lister’s mouth and relaxes. When Lister (regrettably) releases him, they’re both smiling. “Hopelessly in love with you,” he shoots back, and Rimmer gapes at him like a fish, just opening and closing his mouth. Lister laughs at his reaction. “Come on man, you get all stupid every time I say that, you’d think you’re hearing it for the first time.”

“You always catch me off guard!” Rimmer says. 

“You’re making it sound like I’m plotting against you.” Lister sticks his foot out from under the blanket and pokes Rimmer in the thigh. “Go on then, go for your run.”

Rimmer jumps back like he’s just been shocked. “Your feet are disgusting,” he mutters. “And icy.” Lister just wiggles his toes like he’s waving him off, to which Rimmer responds with a huff and stomps over to the door. He pauses in the entranceway though, still facing away. “Listy?” he says, voice unusually small, the way it only is when he’s nervous. Despite the fact that he knows he really has nothing to worry about, Lister tenses up. “I love you too.”

Lister sighs and sinks back fully into the mattress. “I know, Arn,” he says. Rimmer’s shoulders drop in relief and he slips out of the room without another word. Lister squeezes the pillow tightly again and laughs breathlessly, watching him go.


	3. Pillow Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who needs a pillow when you have a perfectly good hologrammatic partner?

Agreeing to sleep in Rimmer’s bunk was a mistake.

Rimmer always said he was a soldier in another life, and Lister never used to believe him, but now he’s starting to understand. It’s the only explanation for now he can sleep in the most uncomfortable conditions. All the times he’s fallen asleep at his desk aside, Rimmer’s mattress is stiff, his sheets starched unbearably, and his pillow firm as stone. It’s like sleeping on the ground, only harder. Plus, he only has the one pillow, so Lister offers to grab one from his bunk. But they quickly find that sleeping on separate pillows puts them too far away from each other, and so Rimmer scoots over slightly and pats the bit of open space next to his head. 

“Here. There’s room.”

Lister arches his eyebrows and pokes it experimentally with a finger, as if it might’ve magically softened up since the last time he tried this (it hasn’t). “Rimmer, I’m not sleeping on your rock pillow.”

Rimmer rolls his eyes, making a big show of making no effort to sit up and get a different pillow. “Fine,” he says, huffing in annoyance. “Then you can sleep on me.”

A moment of silence elapses between the two of them, before Lister very slowly lifts his head, propping himself up on an elbow. He looks at Rimmer, a little surprised, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. It doesn’t come, but in the pause Rimmer seems to lose whatever nerve he’d managed to work up to make such a bold invitation. “Actually, what I meant was—”

“Yeah alright,” Lister interrupts, because if he has to listen to Rimmer ruin another surprisingly sweet moment with his embarrassed prattling he’s going to lose his smegging mind. He promptly shifts so that he’s more or less lying on top of Rimmer, his head nestled just below his collarbone. This seems to shut Rimmer up, his jaw snapping shut and his protests dying on his lips. Lister knows he could’ve kissed him and just as easily achieved the same effect, but the surprise of this method is much more satisfying. 

“Oh,” Rimmer says intelligently, which is more or less how Lister feels as well. “Goodnight, Listy.”

He’s pretending to be asleep already, but if Rimmer listens closely, he’d be able to hear a faint, “night... Arnold,” reverberating against his rapidly rising and falling chest. As relaxing as Rimmer knows this should be, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep a wink tonight.


	4. Perilous Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rimmer has no problem being the hero, but he has some things to say first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with something short and sweet again! This one was inspired by a tweet I saw about characters "desperately confessing their feelings before charging into peril knowing this might be their only chance because they might not survive". Takes place during the bomb scene in TPL.

“The bomb — go get it, Mighty.”

For a moment, Rimmer just stares at him. He’d been so caught up in the exhilaration of having his diamond-light form back (and more importantly, being  _ not _ dead after being moments away from it) that he hadn’t actually processed the fact that he needed to, you know, save everyone. Lister raises his eyebrows, coughs a little, and Rimmer blinks, and then shifts his weight from one food to the other. He feels powerful, strong, capable of anything — and utterly fearless, which is a first for him. It must come with the suit. And yet he hesitates. It isn’t out of cowardice, in fact, he isn’t entirely sure what it is. But he feels the need to say… something.

“Um, Listy,” he says, suddenly extremely self-conscious and aware of everyone standing around them. “Before I go, I just want to say—”

Say what? Say,  _ Lister, I may not make it back, because that bomb is ticking down fast and by the time I get it far enough away it’ll be too late. _ Say,  _ I’ve died once before, and I’ve always been ready to die again.  _ Say,  _ but if it’s time for me to go, I need you to know something.  _ Say,  _ you didn’t need to say those things earlier, but I’m glad you did.  _ Say,  _ you’re the only reason I’m still here. Not just because of that but — all these years _ . Say,  _ it means I’m here to save you now, and if I die doing it, it will have been worth it. _ Say,  _ I don’t know how to tell you this but I think I might l— _

“Rimmer, man,  _ go!” _

_ Oh. Right _ .

He goes. 

There’s no words in the English language that can quite describe the sensation of being made of pure light. For one thing, it’s something Rimmer has gotten used to in thirty years of being a hologram. But diamond-light is something else entirely. Because it comes with the ability to bypass a physical, visible form entirely while still  _ existing _ . Still being cognizant of your actions. It’s like being lighter than air and heavier than lead all at once. Being full of adrenaline, and blindingly bright.

If he had a little time, Rimmer might’ve taken a moment to savor it. 

Instead, he grabs the bomb, and it turns into pure light in his hands as well. And then he’s gone, through the window and out into space.

Again. The good thing about being dead, is you can’t be instantly killed by the vacuum of space, and at some point, Rimmer thinks he should actually take advantage of that fact.

But what you  _ can _ be killed by is an explosive going off in your hands.

Maybe that’s a better way to describe what it’s like to be made of nothing but pure light and energy. It’s like being in an explosion. No. It’s like  _ being _ an explosion.

To make it short: he doesn’t get out in time. An explosion inside of an explosion. But in that form, he can’t exactly be harmed. His lightbee ricochets away in the blast, and he feels himself spinning and falling, yet he’s in perfect control. 

It’s incredible, really.

And only in the momentary peace as Rimmer coasts through space, does it hit him that he actually made it out alive. He’s okay, perfectly so, and he’s going home.

He reappears in the Red Dwarf corridor, smiling smugly, and is greeted by the backs of one human and four cats, still staring worriedly out the window. But then Lister turns around, and his eyes widen comically as he stares in disbelief.

“Rimmer!” he says, and as the others turn too, he’s already moving, rushing up to him. “We thought you were dead.”

Rimmer squares his shoulders. “I’m  _ already _ dead,” he says. “And proud of it.”

Lister stops, a few feet away, and sighs, putting his hands on his hips and exhaling in loud relief. “A smeghead by day,” he says, his old teasing tone starting to creep in. “A superhero by night.” He smiles. “Oh! You were gonna say something, before?”

Right. That.

It had seemed so necessary before, so urgent. He’d been caught up in the moment, but now that he’s back, safe and sound, it seems trivial. Stupid. Rimmer feels his stomach drop, and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, snippy and a little bit forceful. “Nothing important.”

Lister looks unconvinced, which isn’t surprising. After all these years, he knows when Rimmer is lying. But he lets it go, because he also knows that when Rimmer wants to drop something, no one can change his mind. Instead, he closes the distance between them quickly. “C’mere, man.”

Rimmer is certain he’s going in for a hug, which is… weird, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. And Lister  _ has _ been going soft in his old age. Rimmer wrinkles his nose to prepare for the stench, and —

Lister’s own nose smushes up against his, and he winds one arm up around Rimmer’s neck and the other around his waist as he kisses him. And for a moment, Rimmer doesn’t do anything. He just stands there in stupefied shock, not knowing what to do with his hands, or his mouth, or his brain. But then just as Lister starts to pull away, releasing him in sudden worry that he’s done something wrong, Rimmer’s body starts reacting all on its own. His hands grip Lister’s sides, holding him in place, and he kisses him back, hard and fast and messy, because it’s been so,  _ so _ long and he’s forgotten how this works. And then finally,  _ finally _ , his mind catches up to his arms and his mouth and he thinks,  _ he’s just doing this out of pity, because he knows what I was going to say _ .

But it isn’t pity at all. Lister lets out a little contented sigh against Rimmer’s lips, and his hand sneaks up into his hair, and Rimmer still isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, but he melts into Lister’s embrace and as he relaxes, the stiff diamond-light form slips away and he’s back to hardlight, in a soft blue dress uniform, and some of his natural curls return as his hair fades back to its usual color.

From behind them, Rimmer can hear three soft gasps of delight and one gag of disgust. He tenses instinctively, but Lister smiles against his mouth and tugs him closer and the insecurity dissipates. 

They do separate eventually, mainly thanks to Cat who reminds them grimly that they’re not out of danger yet. Rimmer flushes with embarrassment. Lister just laughs quietly, no more than a huff of air against his skin. His head falls against Rimmer’s chest for a moment, and then he looks up with his stupid gerbil smile. “Is that what you were gonna say?” he asks gently, teasingly. 

“Something like that, yes,” Rimmer stammers, face still red. 

“Good,” Lister says. “Let’s go finish saving everyone, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos fuel me :) Catch me on tumblr - [hardlightholography](http://hardlightholography.tumblr.com).


End file.
